FIFA panel adds video review to football laws ahead of World Cup

ZURICH (AP):

In one of the most fundamental changes ever to football's 155-year-old rules, FIFA approved video review yesterday and cleared the way to use it at the World Cup in June.

World football's panel overseeing the laws of the game voted to add video assistant referees (VAR) despite mixed results from trials in top-level games.

The panel, known as IFAB, voted unanimously to begin updating the game's written rules to include VAR and let competition organisers ask to adopt it with FIFA next in line this month.

The decision "represents a new era for football with video assistance for referees helping to increase integrity and fairness in the game", IFAB said in a statement.

FIFA must take a further decision on using VAR at the World Cup in Russia, which kicks off on June 14.

That should be on March 16 when the FIFA Council chaired by President Gianni Infantino meets in Bogot·, Colombia.

Infantino has long said that World Cup referees must get high-tech help to review key decisions at the 64-game tournament.

Video review can overturn "clear and obvious errors" and "serious missed incidents" by match officials involving goals, penalty awards, red cards, and mistaken identity.

"VAR at the World Cup will certainly help to have a fairer World Cup," Infantino said at a news conference after the IFAB meeting. "If there is a big mistake, it will be corrected."

Infantino said that FIFA must have "the ambition to get close to perfection" even if some coaches, players, and fans were not yet convinced by video review.

"We have to speed up reviews," the CEO of England's Football Association, Martin Glenn, acknowledged after taking part in the decision. "Communications to the crowd has to be better. People in the crowd aren't sure what is happening."